


Goodbye, Hello and Everything Inbetween

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5829595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They spent more and more time away from each other and their shared home-- far more time than they spent together in the aftermath of their world falling apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye, Hello and Everything Inbetween

**Author's Note:**

> For the square _Separations and Reunions_ on my [AllBingo](http://allbingo.dreamwidth.org/) Valentine's Fest Card.

It was something that she hadn’t seen coming. She hadn’t been prepared for it on any level. In retrospect, these weeks and years later, she should have probably sensed the change and sensed what was going to happen. After everything that had happened with Ben, she had sealed away her connection to the Force deeply inside her like it was locked inside a stone. The ghostly hand that was clenched around that flame might as well had been a stone wall for how deeply she locked it away. It was the right thing to do. She came from a powerful family of Force users and Luke had spent a great deal of time training her to feel and to use her connection to the Force. She knew what she was capable of on a normal day when things were well and good. She wasn’t about to do a single thing with her connection to the Force when a piece of her heart had broken off with the loss of her son. She had too many examples of what could happen when the Force was used in anger; she would not become a cautionary tale.

So when Han decided that he, too, was leaving, she was caught off guard. They had lost their brother and their son and she thought that they would be able to stick together and help each other deal with the pain that they were feeling. It had never occurred to her that she might have to deal with her grief and her confusion alone. She should have seen it coming when Han volunteered for more and more runs and she dove back into leading and army and designing brilliant tactics for striking back at the First Order and the men that had robbed her of her son.

They spent more and more time away from each other and their shared home-- far more time than they spent together in the aftermath of their world falling apart. Neither of them had every exhibited the best coping mechanisms and it wasn’t really all that hard for them to fall back into those old roles.

When the day came that Han didn’t return from a run, only Leia didn’t seem surprised. She knew, now, that this had been coming for for months and now that she was becoming more and more in balance again, she was only surprised that it had taken him so long to decide that he couldn’t come back home.

That night when she was in their quarters aboard the ship she had taken up residence in, she let the stone doors open in her heart and for the first time since losing her son, she let the Force surround her. She had proven to others and to herself that she would not fall to Darkness when her world fell apart around her and she felt confident enough to welcome it back like an old friend.

She wasn’t strong enough to find Luke, but she could reach out a piece of herself and find her grieving husband. For now, it would have to be enough to know that he was alive. As long as she had that connection with Han and knew that he was alive and still running, then she could pretend to be content with doing the jobs she had to do. He was running from her and from his own grief, but he was still always with her.

She’d be there when he returned home.

***

Running could get tiring after awhile and it was no different with Han. He missed his home with Leia and he missed being with her no matter what was happening during the day. He wasn’t even sure when he made the decision to run from everything, he just did. He went out on a scouting mission with Chewbacca and then he just kept running.

Fourteen years was a long time to be running and even before he found Rey and the Millennium Falcon, he was getting worn down from the life he was leading. He had gotten old when he wasn’t paying attention and the fights with his contacts seemed to get just a little more difficult every time he had a disagreement with one of them. 

He knew what he should do, but he had always dealt with pain and disappointment by running and he wasn’t sure that he would be able to do anything else.

Never mind the nights that he curled up to get some sleep and could only get a peaceful night if he made himself believe that Leia was with him. On those nights, he slept deeply and woke up feeling a little less old and a little less broken. Maybe she reached out to surround him through the Force on those nights. Hell, he didn’t know but it was nice sometimes to have a little something more to believe in.

As long as he didn’t let his traitorous mind tell him that Leia would never want to see him again after he had run out on her like he had. He’d not only left her to lead armies and fight alone, but he had abandoned her to the loneliness of a double dose of grief that they should have been dealing with side by side. They had always been stronger together and he had abandoned the one person that had always stuck by his side because he let his head get buried in his own grief and sense of blame over losing their son and being worried that Leia would somehow blame him.

Because _he_ blamed himself for the path that Ben had taken. He believed that if he had somehow been a better father he would have been able to see the paths that Ben was walking before the massacre and his embracing of the Dark Side and a new name.

_Kylo Ren_.

His son had tried to erase everything he was taught by his parents, his Uncle and his teachers by committing unspeakable acts and changing his name. But changing a name didn’t change who he was. He was still their son. Still the one they had loved and raised and had mourned when they lost him.

Had he done any better than Ben did? Ben changed and when he disappeared, Han had left Leia because his grief was so intense.

In that, he wronged his wife.

***

When the shipped touched down and the doors started to open, Han didn’t move. He had made his decision and he had to live with the consequences. When her honor guard moved out of the way, he couldn’t help smiling a little. She had changed her hair, but she was still Leia. She was still the woman that he had fallen in love with so long ago.

Things were awkward for a moment and when he started to talk, she smiled faintly at him and the next thing he knew he was reaching for her. He pulled her close to him and felt her hands clutch his shirt beneath the jacket he was wearing.

For the first time in a very long time, it felt like both of them had finally come home.

“I’m done running, Leia,” he told her later when they were alone. “I should never have left you.”

“I shouldn’t have let you leave,” she responded just as seriously. “I should have come for you a long time ago.”

“Should haves and would haves aren’t something we need to rehash. Just tell me I still have a home with you and we’ll work on the rest as it happens -- even this war. We always did fight better when we were together.”

“You have always had a home with me, Han,” Leia murmured. “Just as I have hoped I have always had a home with you.”

“You’re my home Princess. You always have been.”


End file.
